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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26204812">stunner</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie'>foxmagpie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>stay gold: prompts [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Girls (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - High School, Bittersweet Ending, F/M, Fade to Black, First Kiss, First Love, First Time, Light Angst, Marijuana, POV Rio (Good Girls), Soft Rio (Good Girls), Underage Drug Use, Unrequited Crush</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:54:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,857</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26204812</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Hi! I'm not sure if you are taking requests, but I have been thinking about this AU idea for so long! Beth &amp; Rio's older sister (by like two years) are besties, and Rio has a huge crush on Beth and she's his first kiss :D</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beth Boland/Rio</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>stay gold: prompts [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903069</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>146</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>285</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was just a quick little prompt I wrote up very aimlessly! It feels a bit skeletal from my recent stuff, but honestly, I just had fun with it. Unbeta'ed, so all mistakes are mine!</p><p>Apologies to anon that this got mildly angsty at the end!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rio takes a drag of his joint and then sets it carefully on the edge of his desk, turning back to the instruction manual for the model plane in front of him—a vintage British Spitfighter that his dad had gotten for him for his fifteenth birthday last month, and which his mom had asked after the other day when she’d found it on the floor of Rio’s closet when she was hanging up some of his shirts. </p><p>Shame had bubbled up in Rio when his mom had held out the dented box to him, an accusation. He remembered how after the party, when he and Mick had Dags had disappeared into Rio’s room to pass around a blunt and talk about girls, Rio had carelessly tossed the box into his closet, fronting that he was too old and too cool for that nerdy kid shit. Now, though, pleasantly stoned and in the zone with his tongue pressed up against the back of his teeth, Rio imagines how his dad’s face will crack into a smile before he claps Rio on the back when he shows it off to him tonight. He can’t wait. </p><p>Rio’s concentrating on gluing the propeller to the nose of the plane, eyes darting back to the manual to double check that he’s got the angle just right, when he hears the unmistakable sound of the front door slam. He jerks his head up, confused.</p><p>“Hello?” he calls out, quickly snatching the joint and tapping it out on the instruction manual. Swiping the ashes into the trash can, he jumps up and throws open his window, waving his hands around to try and disperse the smell of the smoke in the air. The whole time, he looks over his shoulder at the door. He wasn’t expecting anyone home this early.</p><p>When nobody answers, Rio hides the joint in his desk drawer and wipes his palms against his jeans. </p><p>“Hello?” he calls again, peeking out of his room and looking left and right down the hallway for signs of his older sister. “Lola?”</p><p>Again, silence. Brows furrowed, Rio makes his way out into the living room. Besides his own Jordans, there are no other pairs of shoes lined up at the door. He frowns. The kitchen and dining room are empty too.</p><p>Pausing, Rio considers whether he should grab a knife from the drawer—or maybe his baseball bat from his room—when he sees a flash of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye. Turning, he lays eyes on no other than his sister’s best friend coming out of her bedroom. Rio gulps.</p><p>Elizabeth Marks is seventeen, stacked, and something close to sublime (she’s been the recurring star of Rio’s late night fantasies) but right now, she’s crying, her cheeks red and tear-stained.</p><p>“Uh,” Rio says, not really sure what to say. He scratches at his cheek. “You a’ight?”</p><p>It’s a stupid question, obviously, and her eyes set into a glare as she takes the sleeve of her hoodie and swipes at her cheek.</p><p>“Where’s Lola?” she demands, but her voice is all pitchy and cracked.</p><p>“Dance practice,” Rio reminds her.</p><p>“Shit.” Elizabeth groans quietly, and sniffling, she tips her head back to press her fingers against her eyelids, like she’s willing herself to stop crying. </p><p>Rio shifts on his feet. “Do you, like, want some water or—?”</p><p>He is not good at this, he realizes that, but his brain is foggy from the weed and he hasn’t spent much time around crying girls—or girls, period. There were a couple of girls that liked him, sure, but—well. It’d been a while since Rio had had eyes for any girl besides the one standing in front of him. </p><p>She was over all the time, scrunching up her nose as she studied with his sister at the dining room table, gossiping with Lola during sleepovers so that Rio could hear the dull murmur of her voice through the wall late into the night, sitting across from him at family dinners and laughing at his mom’s corny jokes. She had a wicked bad sense of humor, Rio could tell, because when she was really cracking up, she had this little pointy tooth that would stick out. Last summer, he’d started getting her to laugh like that, too, when she’d come camping at the lake with them. He’d spent a week caught between heaven and hell, trying not to gawk at her in her a polka dot one-piece she had no business filling out so well, and trying to soak up her body heat when she subconsciously wiggled her sleeping bag closer to him in the middle of the night. With all those images swirling around in his brain, he’d been desperate for some alone time, but no. He’d spent the entire time surrounded by her and his entire family, relief nowhere to be found.</p><p>He thought maybe she might lose her allure when he’d see her in the morning, all bad breath and tangled hair, but nope. That first morning she’d rolled over and smiled at him in the early dewy sunlight before anyone else had woken up, and even though her mascara was smeared and she had a bit of dried drool at the corner of her mouth, he was a goner.</p><p>Mick had caught Rio staring more than once, always shaking his head like Rio was a fucking idiot for even thinking he had a chance but—there’d been that time, at the very end of the summer, after Rio had hit his growth spurt and his shoulders had set and he’d started bulking up for football. It was the middle of the night and he’d gone to the bathroom to wash his hands after—well, <em> after— </em> and when he’d opened the door he’d nearly tripped over her. He’d steadied her with one of his hands, and he’d watched her eyes widen as she took in his bare chest, seen her cheeks pinken when her gaze had dropped to the sharpness of his hips, and he’d thought, <em> Maybe</em>. </p><p>This is what he thinks of when she sucks in a breath and shakes her head. “No, I’m fine. I think I’m just gonna go—” </p><p>“You should stay,” Rio says, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. </p><p>Elizabeth blinks, taken aback. </p><p>“You’re upset,” he says in a meager approximation of an explanation, and there’s a beat, but she runs a finger along the edge of her eyelid, nodding once like she accepts the rationale.</p><p>For a long moment, neither of them say anything, just looking at each other. But all Rio can focus on is how wet her eyelashes are. </p><p>“You sure you don’t want some water or somethin’?” he asks again, hooking a thumb over his shoulder to gesture towards the sink. </p><p>“No. Thank you, though,” she replies, and even though she says it quietly, it’s the loudest sound in the whole empty house.</p><p>Rio runs his hand over his cropped hair. He wishes she would let him do something. He’s not sure how much longer he can just stand here.</p><p>“Do you want some weed?” </p><p>He’s not sure if he means it as a joke, but he expects her to laugh, startled. She doesn’t. Instead, her eyebrows raise just slightly, and she says, “Yeah, okay.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“It’s, like, supposed to relax you, right?”</p><p>He nods and she shrugs slightly like, <em> that sounds nice. </em></p><p>“I think you’re gonna want that water, though.”</p><p>Elizabeth’s lips tug at the corners, and Rio turns away from her, fingers twitching as he fills up a glass at the sink.</p><p>“So…” she says, tracing the rim with a finger when he hands it to her.</p><p>“It’s, uh, in my room,” he says awkwardly. He means that he’ll go get it, bring it back out here, that he just needs her to <em> wait</em>, but she nods.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>“Okay,” he repeats, dumbfounded, and then he’s following her to his own bedroom, heart pounding in his ears.</p><p>“So this is your room,” she says when she opens the door and just stands in the middle of it. Her eyes dart around, taking everything in—the neatly made bed, the Tupac posters tacked up to the wall, the model plane on the desk.</p><p>Rio feels his ears burn.</p><p>“You’re so tidy,” she says, impressed.</p><p>“I guess.”</p><p>“Believe me,” she insists. “I’ve been in other boys’ rooms. You’re immaculate compared to most.”</p><p>Rio’s jaw locks. He knows she’s had boyfriends. He’s heard her talk about them with Lola from time to time, and he thinks right now she might be with some tool that got kicked off the football team because he was failing a remedial English class (he’s seen him with his arm around her in the hallways at school at least) but he prefers to push that fact to the back of his mind most of the time. </p><p>“Is that a model plane?” she asks, pointing. “Do you—?”</p><p><em> Shit, </em> Rio thinks, regret pooling like acid in his stomach. Why did he let her come into his <em> room? </em>Why did he think this was a good idea?</p><p>She moves closer to it, leaning down, careful not to touch it as she examines the meticulous details. She looks over her shoulder at him, waiting for an answer.</p><p>“Sometimes,” he admits, scratching at his shoulder. “It’s kinda nerdy but I dunno. It’s kinda fun, I guess.”</p><p>“It <em> is </em> nerdy,” she agrees, setting her water on his nightstand and crouching to examine some books he’s got stacked on the bottom shelf. “But also it’s kind of cute.”</p><p>The regret evaporates instantly, and Rio’s glad she’s not looking at him, because he’s grinning. </p><p>“<em>1984</em>?” she asks, fingers ghosting across the spine. “I’ve been meaning to read that. Any good?”</p><p>“Yeah. Yeah, I like it a lot. Oppressive government, forbidden love. You can borrow it, if you want,” Rio says, imagining her reading his book in her bed, taking a piece of him home with her. He likes the idea. </p><p>She glances at him again. “You’re always so nice to me.”</p><p>He bites his lip, looking down at his feet.</p><p>“It’s whatever,” he says dismissively. “Take it.”</p><p>She pulls the book out and plops onto his mattress, making a show of turning it over to read the blurb on the back. It gives him a second to suck in a breath, absorbing the sight of her on his bed—something he thought he’d never see.</p><p>When she glances back up at him, he remembers himself.</p><p>“You smoked before?” he asks, but he knows she hasn’t.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Okay, well, it’s easy. I’ll teach you.”</p><p>He scrambles to his desk, sitting down on the chair and pulling out his joint. She studies him as he expertly flicks the lighter and lights it up.</p><p>“So the most important part is that you’re gonna wanna suck the smoke into your lungs. Don’t just hold it in your mouth and then exhale. You’ll probably cough, but that’s normal.”</p><p>“Sounds simple enough.”</p><p>“You want me to show you?”</p><p>“No, I think I’ve got it,” she says, nodding firmly, determined. </p><p>Rio smirks. “A’ight.” </p><p>He passes the joint to her, and when she takes it from him, their fingers brush. Rio shoves his hands in his pockets, watching her twist her wrist and examine the joint from all angles, like it’s something to be studied. Then she takes a deep breath and puts the joint to her lips, taking a long and deep hit—until she’s sputtering and coughing and her eyes are leaking all over again.</p><p>“Jeez,” she chokes out. </p><p>“Here,” he says, rolling across the floor with his chair to grab the water and hand it to her. “Told you you’d need this.”</p><p>Elizabeth takes a gulp and coughs a little more.</p><p>“You good?”</p><p>She nods, taking another drink, and then she hands the glass back to him.  </p><p>“You feel it yet? You took a pretty big hit.” </p><p>She looks up at the ceiling, like she’s thinking. “Yeah, I think so.” </p><p>He can see it, the way her face relaxes, the way she lets the tension out of her shoulders.</p><p>“Good.”</p><p>He sets the glass back on his nightstand and then feels her eyes on him, her gaze fixed and heavy.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You didn’t ask me what was wrong. When I was crying,” she says, and he doesn’t think he hears judgment in it—it sounds more curious, intrigued. </p><p>“Figured it wasn’t my business. That if you wanted to talk about it, you would.” </p><p>She blinks, and he notices her face has finally gone back to its normal pale coloring. </p><p>“That’s… weirdly thoughtful.” She looks down at her lap and fiddles with the pages of the book. </p><p>Shrugging, Rio takes the joint back from her to take his own hit. He turns his head to exhale so that the smoke doesn’t hit her in the face.</p><p>“You wanna talk about it now?”</p><p>She inhales sharply.</p><p>“You didn’t cough,” she notes, and Rio figures that means <em> no.  </em></p><p>“Done this a few times.”</p><p>She hums, then looks out his window, watching leaves fall to the ground from the tree in the backyard. </p><p>He’s racking his brain for something to say when suddenly she surprises him: “My boyfriend kissed another girl. A freshman. Like you.” She says it fast, the words all stringing together. </p><p>Rio’s eyebrows shoot up in shock at the admission, and his filter seems to be faulty because he says, “Well, he’s a fucking idiot, then.”</p><p>She looks back at him, laughing softly, noncommittal.</p><p>“He is,” Rio insists. “Has he <em> seen </em> you?” He nods at her, letting his eyes flick up and down her body. </p><p>A blush rises to her cheeks. “Thanks,” she says quietly, but he can tell she thinks he’s just placating her.</p><p>“That guy never deserved you.”</p><p>“You know him? Dean?”</p><p>“Nah, not really.”</p><p>“Then how can you say that?”</p><p>“‘Cause I know <em>you.</em>”</p><p>The words hang in the air between them, thick and staticky. She looks at him with a question in her eyes. They’re so blue, Rio feels like he’s been plunged into the ocean just looking at them. </p><p>He takes another drag of the joint, feeling the smoke seep into his lungs. He doesn’t break eye contact.</p><p>“What do you know about me?” </p><p>“I know you got no idea what you look like, for one.”</p><p>She scoffs, rolling her eyes and looking away.</p><p>“But it’s not just that,” he says quickly. “I know you’re smart—but you never slack. You cram for every test anyway.”</p><p>“That’s not special. That’s just test anxiety.”</p><p>“I know you bake the best cookies I ever tasted. That you laugh at cheesy jokes, and not just to be polite. You really think they’re funny. I know you’re the type of person that captures spiders in a glass to release them outside, ‘cause you don’t wanna hurt ‘em. Know that you never got a bad word to say about anybody—even the dude that cheated on you.”</p><p>She doesn’t say anything, just grabs the joint from his fingers and takes another smooth drag. She lets out a single, choked cough that she refuses to open her mouth for, letting it stay trapped in her throat.  </p><p>“And you’re stubborn as hell. Or determined, however you wanna put it.”</p><p>“Determined?” she asks, passing him back the joint. </p><p>“Yeah. Like you always got somethin’ to prove. Just now, when you saw I didn’t cough? Well, you had to do the same.”</p><p>She laughs lightly, flicking her wrist like it doesn’t mean anything. “Whatever.”</p><p>“It’s not just that. This summer, at the lake? Lola suggested you’d be too afraid to jump off that rock—and you jumped on the count of two instead of three, beating her to the bottom. When Lauren or Asmita—I dunno, one of those Leadership bitches—said there was nothin’ to be done about the racist mascot, you started that petition and now the school board’s having a meeting. And there’s this way that you—” He shifts in his seat with a squeak, cutting himself off, realizing he’s said too much. </p><p>“What?” she asks, and he licks his teeth, resistant. She reaches out to poke his shoulder. “Come on. <em> What? </em>”</p><p>She looks so curious, so hungry to hear what he’s got to say next. </p><p>“It’s just the way you carry yourself—confident. Like you don’t give a shit what other people think. Like you know who you are.” Even when she was standing in front of him crying, she didn’t look smaller. Her shoulders were always pushed back, her chin always set. There was something almost… <em> regal </em> about her.</p><p>Her eyes widen in surprise. “Wow.”</p><p>Leg bouncing, Rio shrugs, like it’s not a big deal. Like he didn’t just reveal his hand.</p><p>But her face softens, and she’s looking at him differently now, her head slightly cocked. Something about it makes him feel bolder. </p><p>“I didn’t know you were paying that much attention.”</p><p>“Hard not to, ma.” </p><p>Elizabeth looks down at her lap, and he can barely see it, but he sees a hint of a smile playing at her lips. </p><p>“You want another hit?” </p><p>She shakes her head.</p><p>“You feel better now?”</p><p>She nods. “I do.” </p><p>And then she leans forward and her face is right in front of his. She has a smattering of freckles across her nose, almost indiscernible, that he’s never noticed before. He can see flecks of green in her eyes. He swallows, and he can feel a pulsing in his head. </p><p>“I’ve always wondered if you like me,” she admits in a whisper. </p><p>He can’t help it. He glances at her lips, pink and plump and perfect.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“What’s your conclusion?” he asks, twirling the joint around between his fingers. </p><p>“Inconclusive. I think I need… a little more proof,” she says lightly, setting the book down besides her and wiggling herself to the edge of the mattress. </p><p>Was she—?</p><p>“Maybe I wanna know what <em> you </em> think about <em> me,</em>" he says, buying himself some more time. </p><p>Rio flicks his eyes back up to her, and he’s nearly breathless, waiting to hear what she says next. </p><p>“Maybe... you should kiss me so you’ll know.”</p><p><em> Fuck</em>, he thinks. <em> Was this really happening?  </em></p><p>“Maybe I will,” he agrees, pretending to be unphased by this turn of events. He sets the joint on the nightstand and scoots his chair closer to her with a creak. She shifts so that he can fit his knees between hers. </p><p>And even though his heart is pounding so hard that he thinks she can probably hear it, a ticking bomb in his chest, he sets his hand on her thigh like it’s the most natural thing in the world. </p><p>She puts her hand on his top of his, swiping her thumb against his skin. She’s warm.</p><p>He squeezes her, relishing the feel of her underneath his hand.</p><p>She lifts an eyebrow: a dare.</p><p>With his other hand, he reaches for her face, and taking her chin between his fingers, he tilts her face down. Every nerve in his body stands on end, and she's too much. He doesn’t think he can handle looking at her for one more second. He shuts his eyes and kisses her. </p><p>It’s soft, so fucking soft. It’s nothing like he’s imagined every time he’s imagined it—and it’s better than he could’ve ever believed. </p><p>She wearing some sort of lemon lip balm, and maybe it’s dumb, but he swears he can taste the color yellow, fresh and vibrant and radiant like the sun. </p><p>They pause, foreheads pressed together, and he just breathes, his lips just a centimeter away from hers.</p><p>“That prove anything?” he whispers, and his voice is hoarser than it has any right to be. </p><p>“Prove it again,” she demands, and he doesn’t need to be told twice.</p><p>This time, she slides her hands up his arms, up his neck, cradling his face. Everything else falls away and there’s just her: the feel of fingers pressed against his jaw, the sensation of her wet tongue darting out to lick at the seam of his lips, the sound of the slightest whine escaping her like his favorite song. </p><p>He feels himself lifting up out of the chair, needing to meet her properly, needing—just—<em>more</em>—</p><p>But then he hears the front door slam shut, and reality comes crashing back down on them. Elizabeth breaks the kiss, slipping out of his grasp, pushing lightly against his chest.</p><p>He feels like he’s been drenched in ice cold water. </p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>“Is that Lola?” </p><p>Glancing at his alarm clock, Rio runs his hand along his mouth. “Yeah, it’s gotta be.” </p><p>“She’ll have seen my car,” Elizabeth says, and she grabs the book and stands up, fidgeting. She tugs her shirt down and brushes her bangs off her forehead. </p><p>“Wait—” he says as soon as she starts walking to the door, but the second the word is out of his mouth he regrets it, because he knows. He <em> knows. </em>He doesn’t even have to ask the question. </p><p>“You’re <em> really </em> sweet,” Elizabeth says gently, turning around to look at him.</p><p>He nods, jaw rocking, and he twists in his chair and, with nothing else to do, he slides back to his spot at his desk. </p><p>Mick was right, he thinks, picking up a piece of the model plane and pretending to focus on the instructional manual, but the letters are just blurs. Something hot burns in his gut. He can’t believe he let himself <em> believe </em> it.</p><p>“I mean it,” she says, and it doesn’t sound like she’s lying, but what did that matter? He just wants her to go. </p><p>He grunts, ignoring her, and maybe she sighs, but it’s hard to tell over the click of the door as she exits to the hallway.</p><p>“Were you just in my brother’s room—?” he hears Lola asks in disbelief on the other side of the door, like she didn’t just see Elizabeth walk through it. </p><p>And yeah, that feels right, Rio thinks. That’s how unbelievable the situation was—Lola didn’t even trust her own eyes. </p><p>“Yeah—he was, um, keeping me company until you got home.”</p><p>Lola laughs. “Well, I’m sorry. That must've been terrible.”</p><p>Rio grinds his teeth, and before realizes its happening, the plastic propeller in his hand snaps in two. </p><p>“No, no. Don’t be. It was fine—more than fine. He loaned me a book,” Elizabeth says, and Rio imagines that she holds up the <em> 1984 </em> for Lola to see.</p><p>Can she still feel the ghost of his lips on hers, he wonders? </p><p>He can still taste the sour remnants of the lemon on his tongue. </p><p>“How uncharacteristically nice of him,” Lola replies, voice laced with surprise. </p><p>“He’s a nice kid.”</p><p>Yeah, Mick was right, he thinks. Rio was a fucking idiot. </p><p>None of this meant anything at all. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rio and Beth start a secret relationship.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Meg's warning for this chapter: "This is like watching a slow motion car crash."</p><p>I'M SORRY FOR THE ANGST IN ADVANCE.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rio’s door swings open and his mom peeks her head in, her dark hair falling in tendrils around her face.</p><p>“Time for dinner, mijo. Oxtail stew.”</p><p>He knows: fried onions and roasted poblano peppers and chopped garlic has been simmering in tomato sauce all day, and the aroma permeates the entire house. It should be comforting and familiar, but Rio hardly notices it. </p><p>“I’m not hungry.” He stares at the ceiling aimlessly, tossing a tennis ball up and down in the air. </p><p>His mom frowns, coming into his room the rest of the way to stare down at him lying on his bed, the sheets rumpled beneath him.  </p><p>“You? Not hungry? Since when?” </p><p>Rio rolls his eyes. She was always complaining that he was eating her out of house and home, and now she wanted to complain that he <em>wasn’t </em>eating?</p><p>“I’ll eat later,” he promises.</p><p>Her eyes dart around his room, noticing soda cans piling up on his nightstand and an unfolded basket of laundry on his desk and his backpack tossed carelessly on the floor at the foot of his bed. </p><p>Squinting at him, she presses the back of her hand to his forehead, feeling for a fever. “Are you sick?” </p><p>Her ring is cold and sharp against his eyebrow, and Rio bats her hand away. </p><p>“I’m fine, ma. I’m just not hungry.”</p><p>Her eyes narrow. “I don’t like it when you don’t eat.”</p><p>“Ma, it’s one meal. I’ll eat later. No se preocupe.”</p><p>She tuts and he hears: <em> I’ll worry if I want to, thank you very much. </em></p><p>“You didn’t eat last Friday, either. Or the Friday before.”</p><p>Rio’s jaw twitches and he scrunches his eyebrows, acting like he doesn’t know what his mom’s going on about.</p><p>“Don’t give me that face. I pay attention.” She lowers herself to sit on his bed, the mattress dipping with her weight. She looks at him, her face absurdly serious. “You’ve been spending all this time in your room. Are you depressed? All the news articles say—”</p><p>“Oh my god.” Rio groans, annoyed. He drops the tennis ball and presses the pads of his fingers to his eyes. “I am begging you to stop acting crazy.”</p><p>Just then he hears a burst of laughter from the other side of the wall, and then a high-pitched squeal peals out in response.</p><p>When Rio slaps a hand against the wall, Lola’s squeal turns into a startled squawk at the same time that his mom jumps back in surprise.</p><p>“Rio—!”</p><p>“God, you are so <em> loud</em>!” Rio complains. </p><p>“Be nice to your sister,” his mother scolds, whacking his hip. “What has gotten into you?”</p><p>“Killjoy!” Lola yells back, and Rio sighs in annoyance.</p><p>“She’s right,” his mother says with a reprimanding look. “You’ve been so <em>grouchy </em>lately. Are you fighting with Mick?” </p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Dags?”</p><p>He looks at her blankly, like he can’t even follow her line of reasoning. </p><p>“Is one of your teachers being mean to you?”</p><p>“Huh? Ma, no. Nothing is going on. Stop asking me all these dumb questions.”</p><p>“Well, <em> something’s </em> going on—your room’s a mess, you’re sulking in here all the time—”</p><p>“Cláudia, are we eating or what?” his father calls from the hallway, and Rio raises his eyebrow like, <em> Just go. </em>“Come on, food’s getting cold!”</p><p>She ignores both of them. “Is it about a girl?” </p><p>Another detonation of laughter comes from Elizabeth and Rio shakes his head, jaw tight.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Cláudia—?” And the thump of his father’s footsteps get louder as he comes down the hall.</p><p>“We’ll talk later,” she promises. “And I’ll saran wrap a bowl of soup and put it in the fridge so you can just heat it up whenever you get hungry.”</p><p>He opens his mouth to say, <em> I’m not a kid</em>, but he closes it when he sees the crease in his mom’s forehead, the one she gets whenever she talks to his Tía Lupe about money, or to his abuelo about his diabetes. </p><p>“Thanks,” he says instead, looking back at the ceiling and tossing the ball back in the air.</p><p>“Sí, claro.” And then she pushes herself up off the bed at the same time that he hears a door open and the murmur of his father telling the girls that dinner is ready. The hallway floor whines as everyone makes their way to the dining room, and Rio breathes easier when the silence resumes, everyone too far away to hear.</p><p>Only—</p><p>Only then there’s another creak in the floor, and Rio leans over slightly to see a shadow flicker underneath his door as one last person passes his room—like they’d paused outside of his door, listening for him.</p><p>It was probably his mom, he thinks, tossing the ball back into the air. It probably wasn’t her. </p><p>But he can’t help thinking: what if it was? </p><hr/><p>He feels the bed dip again and, blinking his eyes open to see only pitch blackness, he briefly has a wild thought that his mom had come back in the middle of the night to finish their conversation.</p><p>“What the—?”</p><p>“You’re avoiding me.”</p><p>He runs his tongue along his teeth.</p><p>Elizabeth was in his bed. Again. </p><p>It was his ultimate fantasy, played over thousands of times before he’d fallen asleep, and yet the image that swims to his head now is the one of her leaving his bedroom, pity written all over her face. <em> You’re </em> really <em> sweet, </em>she’d told him, like it was some sort of consolation prize.</p><p>“No. I’m not.” </p><p>He rolls his head to the side and reads the red glare of his alarm clock: 3:37 am.</p><p>“You’re lying.”</p><p>He groans. “Jesus, it’s the middle of the night.”</p><p>“You know I can’t talk to you any other time.”</p><p>Rio doesn’t say anything but, feeling the warmth of her body against his thigh, he shifts just enough that he isn’t touching her at all, saved by the thickness of his blanket and half an inch of blank space.</p><p>“Turn on the light.”</p><p>“No—”</p><p>“<em>Rio,</em>” she insists.</p><p>He sighs and reaches an arm to twist the switch of the small green lamp on his bedside table. Sitting up, he squints, recoiling from the light with a yawn.</p><p>“<em>Thank </em> you,” Elizabeth says, and he sees her link her fingers on her lap, sitting prim and poised. She’s wearing a set of the most hideous pajamas he’s ever seen: dancing kittens.</p><p>He wishes that did anything to sway his opinion of her—but he’s seen her in dozens of pairs of ugly PJs before: cutesy little teddy bears and rainbow sprinkle donuts and holiday-themed ones, too, with Jack-o-Lanterns or gingerbread men or KISS ME and BE MINE Valentine’s candy hearts. She and Lola liked to buy matching pairs, put on face masks, and have movie nights. Sometimes Elizabeth would invite Rio to join, if he was passing through the living room, and she’d shift over to the middle seat on the couch close to Lola to make room for him. Once, when they were watching <em> The Exorcism, </em> she’d yelped and grabbed his wrist, her nails digging into his skin, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t believe she was <em> touching </em> him. His heart had hammered so loud, he was sure she could hear it—</p><p>He pushes the memory away. </p><p>“What do you want?” Rio asks coldly, looking towards his cracked window where he can hear a symphony of crickets. He tries to focus on the music, tries not to register the smell of Elizabeth’s peachy shampoo, but she’s too close to him. It’s overwhelming. </p><p>“I <em> want </em> you to stop avoiding me.”</p><p>Gaze set in a challenge, he locks eyes with her. “Why?”</p><p>She blinks, taken aback. “What do you mean ‘why’? <em> Because.</em>”</p><p>Rio scoffs. “Okay.”</p><p>“Your family is worried about you—” she tries.</p><p>“Noted.”</p><p>Elizabeth sighs, exasperated. “Would you <em> stop </em> being so difficult? They’re going to notice that you won’t be in the same room as me and—”</p><p>“So your panties are all twisted ‘cause, what? My family might think I don’t like you? Who cares?”</p><p>For a brief second, her face crumples. Then she schools her features into a scowl and says, of all things, “Don’t say ‘panties.’”</p><p>Rolling his eyes, Rio huffs out a laugh. “That’s all you have to say? Okay. Go back to bed, Elizabeth.” </p><p>He reaches for the knob on the lamp, but suddenly Elizabeth’s hand snaps around his wrist. He looks at her, eyes stony.</p><p>“I care, okay?”</p><p>Brows furrowing, Rio doesn’t say anything. </p><p>Clearing her throat, she says, “I care—if you don’t like me.” </p><p>And it’s stupid, he thinks, because in what universe could he not like her? How could <em> anyone </em> not like the way she wrinkles her nose when Lola was being crass, or the way she blushes whenever she announces a good grade on a test she’d been freaking out about, or the way she pushes back her shoulders when she’s being challenged?</p><p>In what alternate reality was there a Rio that didn’t constantly think of her, dream of her?</p><p>But she looks at him like she doesn’t know that he’s so messed up over her that he can’t eat. Like she believes it’s possible that he really might not like her—and like she hates it. </p><p>Rio’s heart lodges into his throat. He drops his hand, abandoning the plan to turn out the light, to kick her out of his room. </p><p>“I thought…” His sentence putters out. He doesn’t know how to finish the thought—he thought what? That it meant nothing? That <em> she </em> didn’t like <em> him</em>? That he’d done something wrong—that he shouldn’t have kissed her at all, not when she was so upset, or worse, that she’d <em> wanted </em> him to kiss her but changed her mind when he’d been bad at it? That he’d lost his chance?</p><p>“Not because—” she says, shaking her head. “It wasn’t that I... you know… It wasn’t that.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>It seems that neither of them know exactly what to say and the moment stretches between them, soft and malleable like putty. </p><p>“I don’t… not like you,” Rio admits, biting at his inner lip. </p><p>Her mouth quirks up in the ghost of a smile. “Well... good.”</p><p>“Yeah?” he asks, and he glances down at her hand, still clasped around his wrist. </p><p>“Yeah. I mean…” She follows his eyes and loosens her grip, rubbing her thumb against the soft inner skin of her wrist right over his pulse. Could she feel it quickening, he wonders? “It was a good kiss.”</p><p>“Pretty good,” he agrees, grinning lazily, playing nonchalant, but relief floods his system, uncoiling every rigid muscle in his body. </p><p>
  <em> A good kiss.  </em>
</p><p>He hadn’t lost his shot, hadn’t fucked it all up. She <em> liked </em> him. She’d liked kissing him. They might—</p><p>But he looks at her, and she’s still looking down, nodding with a small smile, lost in thought. She traces her finger along the lines of his palm. He doesn’t know what she’s doing, but he really, really doesn’t want her to stop. </p><p>“Elizabeth?”</p><p>“But…”</p><p>Rio grimaces. Of course there was a <em> but.  </em></p><p>“It’s complicated,” she says softly. “Lola…”</p><p>“I don’t care about Lola,” he says quickly.</p><p>Elizabeth’s lips curve up, but it’s more sad than not. “I knew you’d say that.”</p><p>“She can—”</p><p>“It’s not just Lola, you know? It’s everyone. Your mom, your dad. God, it’s even—you.” </p><p>“Me? How—?” He’s not following. How was he getting in his own way?</p><p>“I told you—I care what you think, okay? I can’t—I don’t want to lose them. I don’t want to lose <em> you.</em>”</p><p>“Lose me?”</p><p>The brief, glorious moment where everything felt infinitely possible feels like a window about to slam shut so hard that the glass shatters. They hadn’t even started and she was already at the end. </p><p>“I just wanted to make sure we were okay but…” She hesitates, squeezing his hand and sucking in a breath. “You’re right. I should go back to bed.” It’s barely a whisper, and when she drops his hand, Rio feels suddenly cold, the chill from the open window washing over him.</p><p>It couldn’t be over that fast—could it? His dream girl liked him, but that was all they got? One good kiss? That was it?</p><p>Forever?</p><p>“Can I kiss you goodnight?” </p><p>The words strike out of his mouth faster than lightning. Elizabeth snaps her gaze up to his, and he can’t read her, not at all, but her eyes are wide and so electric blue, it feels like each nerve in his body is jolted awake. </p><p>It’s just—if this was all he got, he wanted to zap the moment for all its possibilities. </p><p>“You shouldn’t,” she warns, but her eyes drop to his lips and she doesn’t move an inch.  </p><p>“Didn’t ask if I should,” Rio says, scooting closer, searching her face. She locks eyes with him and her pupils are blown. Tentatively, he pushes a strand of her hair off her forehead, his pinky barely, barely brushing her skin. “Asked if I could.”</p><p>He’s close enough to her now that he’s not sure he’s ever smelled anything but peaches—sweet and ripe and utterly intoxicating.</p><p>The air between them crackles and she nods, once. </p><p>“Goodnight, Elizabeth.”</p><p>He sees the muscles in her throat jump as she swallows thickly. </p><p>“Goodnight, Rio.”</p><p>He kisses her, softly at first—his hand first on her face, his thumb swiping over her cheekbone—but then she opens her mouth, deepening the kiss.</p><p>Hungry for her (only for her), Rio’s hand disappears into her hair, his fingers sliding through her curls, holding her close to him so that he can taste her properly, savor her. </p><p>She doesn’t taste like lemons this time, he notices. She tastes like <em> him</em>.</p><p>“What?” she asks, pulling away with a quiet giggle.</p><p>“Huh?” Rio asks in a daze. He wants to keep kissing her. He never wants to stop. </p><p>“You were smiling,” she says, poking a dimple in his cheek. “You still are.”</p><p>Rio’s grin widens and she mirrors him, her cheeks glowing. </p><p>“You steal my toothpaste?” </p><p>The cinnamon still burns on his lips—and he knows that she must’ve rifled through his drawer in the bathroom. Lola had her own tube—spearmint. </p><p>“Did I?” Elizabeth asks, feigning innocence. She shrugs. “I didn’t know.”</p><p>“Uh huh. Going through my stuff, breaking into my bedroom in the middle of the night…” he says liltingly. </p><p>“And?” she challenges. “Are you complaining?”</p><p>“You got it <em> so </em> bad for me,” Rio teases.</p><p>“Shut up!” she hisses, but she’s blushing, fighting a smile. </p><p>“It’s okay,” he says, leaning forward and hovering just a breath away from her lips. “It can be our secret.”</p><p>This time, she’s the one that closes the gap.</p><hr/><p>“Finalmente,” his mother huffs when Rio plops into the dining room chair the next morning. “The boy leaves his bedroom!”</p><p>Across the table from him, Elizabeth smirks before she wipes a bit of syrup off the corner of her mouth with a napkin. </p><p>“Good, now your mother can worry about the next item on her list,” his father teases. His mother scowls. “Is it Lola’s German grade now? Or Elizabeth’s Vitamin D deficiency?”</p><p>“Hey!” Elizabeth protests with a laugh. </p><p>“You are <em> very </em> pale, honey,” his mother adds, reaching over to squeeze Elizabeth’s arm with an affectionate smile. “Sometimes I think we’ve got a ghost in the house but nope—it’s just you.”</p><p>Rio’s grin contorts into a yawn as he pours himself a glass of orange juice. </p><p>“You look terrible,” Lola snarks, twirling her hair around a finger. </p><p>“Lola!” their mother scolds, her attention immediately diverting. “Manners.”</p><p>“Good morning to you too,” Rio says, unusually unperturbed, reaching to load a little bit of everything onto his plate until its crowded with scrambled eggs, toast, and blueberry pancakes.</p><p>“Appetite’s back too, I see,” his father muses, snatching a piece of bacon before Rio can steal the last of it. He winks at his mother at the opposite end of the table. “Told you, cariño.”</p><p>“It’s normal for a mother to worry!” she defends herself. </p><p>Elizabeth leans back, amused. Her eyes jump from person to person as the conversation bounces around, rapid-fire. </p><p>“Maybe that you should worry that your son’s got crazy bags under his eyes,” Lola says, still fixated on Rio. She looks at him suspiciously. “What were you doing?”</p><p>“Lola,” their mother sighs, wary, but Rio’s spine stiffens and Elizabeth’s eyes widen. </p><p>“Were you up late building one of your little planes, or did you finally find a big boy hobby?”</p><p>Rio sets his jaw and his eyes flash, and there’s a part of him that wants <em> so </em> badly to throw it back in her face—to tell her <em> exactly </em> what he was up doing in the middle of the night—but then he feels Elizabeth nudging him gently under the table before she rests her bare toes over his.</p><p>They’re freezing cold but he doesn’t mind. </p><p>It takes everything in him to tamp down his smile.</p><p>“I was reading.”</p><p>“Good book?” his dad asks, draining the dregs of his coffee.</p><p>“Couldn’t put it down.”</p><p>Glancing over, Rio sees Elizabeth pinken.</p><p>“You’d like it,” he suggests easily, smearing peach preserves on his toast. “I could give it to you when I finish it. Next time you’re over.”</p><p>Eyes sparkling, he chomps into his toast and watches Elizabeth quickly lift her juice to her lips to hide her smile.</p><p>Lola doesn’t notice, though. She’s staring only at Rio.</p><p>“Stop loaning my friend your books,” Lola complains with a roll of her eyes. “It’s weird.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Elizabeth says, not looking at him but poking his foot with her toe. “I like it.”</p><p>“Ugh.” Lola scoffs. “Nerds.”</p><hr/><p>So for a while, that’s what it’s like: after Lola passes out at Friday sleepovers, Elizabeth slips into Rio’s bedroom. He can always hear her coming when she steps on that spot of carpet that creaks just outside his door, and at first, it’d made them nervous, but after five or six times, they’d realized that it wasn’t the siren they thought it was. </p><p>He’s always up, always waiting for her, waiting for the few glorious hours he gets to spend alone with her. He lifts up his blanket so she can curl up next to him in his twin bed, her head on his chest, and Rio relishes how she’ll let him slip his hand under her pajama top to trace circles on the skin at her hip. </p><p>(She’s so fucking soft, he can’t stand it.)</p><p>In the shadows, they lie there together whispering like thieves. She catches him on her week, telling him about all the things he misses because he can’t just walk up to her at school and hold her hand or kiss her against her locker or hell—even sit and talk to her during lunch. She spends her lunch in A Bay, where the juniors and seniors eat, and he’s relegated to C Bay with Mick, Dags, and the rest of the freshmen. Sometimes he passes her during break, sees her gliding through the halls with Lola or her Leadership friends, and she always gives him this little secret smile when she catches his eye, but that’s all he gets. That’s all that he has to sustain him until the next Friday rolls around and he gets to hold her, to tuck her head under his chin so he’s completely submerged in the smell of her peach shampoo. </p><p>At first, she just tells him about school stuff—about Lauren and Asmita snarking behind her back and then pretending that they don’t know what she’s talking about, about her certainty that she’s going to fail the Psych final, even about how annoyed she is by Dean flaunting his new relationship with Amber Dooley. </p><p>“Wish I could flaunt you,” Rio tests out one night when she complains about Dean parading a bouquet of roses and balloons through the hall for Amber’s fifteenth birthday. </p><p>She looks up at him and sees his jaw twitch. Then she crawls on top of him and kisses him like she’s never kissed him before. He wants it to mean, <em> I wish you could too, </em> but there’s a small aching part of him that thinks it means, <em> Please don’t say that.  </em></p><p>Despite the fact that he wants nothing more than to feel her legs gripping his hips as she straddles him, he breaks the kiss. Says he’s tired. That he doesn’t think he could stay up for another second. </p><p>Elizabeth pales but she nods, rolling off of him and tiptoeing out of his room. </p><p>So he tries to mute the part of him that wants more of her—more of her time, more of her attention, more of her heart. Tries to make do with the scraps, tries to remember when he was starved for her—to remember that what he has now was once beyond his wildest imaginings. </p><p><em> So what if she can’t wear his jersey to the football game? </em>he thinks, the smell of mud thick in his nose as the rain patters on his helmet. He looks over and finds her in the crowd on a Friday night, nestled between his mom and his sister, swinging a pompom over her head. At least she was there. </p><p><em>And</em> <em>who cares that he can’t ask her to the dance?</em> he thinks, standing off to the side and watching his mom snap Polaroids of Lola and Elizabeth in their winter ball dresses, Elizabeth in something flowery and yellow (he’s not sure she’s ever looked prettier, but he swallows the compliment and looks down at his feet when Lola notices him staring). It wasn’t like he’d ever cared about going to a dance before, anyway. </p><p>And did it really matter, he wonders, if she had to tell everyone that her grandmother gave her the heart pendant necklace he’d saved up his chore money to buy for her for Christmas? She never took it off, was always fingering it lightly when he saw her talking to somebody in the hallway at school, when he saw her studying at his kitchen table, and he knew.</p><p>And it’s not like she doesn’t give him anything.</p><p>When she invites him onto the couch for her and Lola’s movie nights, she inches her hand closer to his and then links her pinky with his—it’s the smallest touch, not nearly enough, but it’s quick and easy to disentangle just in case Lola leans forward without warning to glimpse them. </p><p>She also starts writing him notes and slipping them into his locker. There’s never anything identifiable in them, a generic “To: You, From: Me” written on the front, a simple message telling him she was thinking of him during math, that she thinks he’d like the book they’re reading in English right now, that she’s dreaming of Friday. </p><p>She asks him once if he destroys the notes, and he lies and promises that he does, but he’s got a small pile of them that he keeps with his pipe and his papers tucked far under his bed in an old Nike shoebox. He knows it’s stupid, but sometimes rereading them is the only thing that gets him through the week. </p><hr/><p>Eventually, Elizabeth opens up more, telling him things that even Lola doesn’t know. In the cover of darkness, in the absolute quiet of the house in the middle of the night, she starts telling him about her little sister. Not the cute stories about Annie smuggling cookies away in her room to feed to her “ant friends,” or the funny stories about Annie begging Elizabeth to let her help her with her makeup only to make her look like the raccoon Annie was trying to adopt from the backyard. No, stories about how she’s wild and uncontrollable. How she gets in trouble at school for running away or biting or stealing toys from the other kids. How she throws tantrums at home whenever their parents fight. </p><p>(And Rio begins to gather that her parents fight a lot.)</p><p>She tells him that she’s the only one that can calm Annie down, that she’s quitting piano so she can be at home with her more. That maybe, sometimes, she might have to come around less too. If things are tense at home. </p><p>Rio’s silent when she says this, curling a strand of her hair around his finger, processing.</p><p>“She needs me,” Elizabeth says quietly.</p><p>“I know,” is all he can answer.</p><p>But he grips her a little tighter and kisses her a little harder that night, the ache inside of him splitting him a little wider. </p><hr/><p>Elizabeth’s visits get more sporadic. There are less sleepovers but more after-school visits—times where he gets to idle in the kitchen and jump into a conversation with her and Lola, or where he gets to hear her laugh through a wall—but it’s not long before Rio has soccer practice and he’s lucky if he gets to see her for twenty minutes before she has to go home.</p><p>One lucky night when she’s actually staying over, he tells her he wants to quit the team. She tells him not to be ridiculous.</p><p>“It’s not ridiculous,” he argues, schooling his voice into a low tone. </p><p>“Well… what if I told you I <em> like </em> seeing you all sweaty and covered in dirt and grass?” she asks coyly, looking up at him propped on top of her in his bed, scratching a single finger lightly down his neck.</p><p>“Oh, yeah?” he asks, nosing at the top button of her pajama top (elephants this time—her favorite, she says, because they take care of each other). “You like that?”</p><p>“Maybe,” she says, emitting a low, breathy huff when he kisses and then sucks the soft skin spilling out of the top of her bra—the only place she’ll let him give her a hickey because it’s hidden (and because so far she still won’t let him get her bra off). </p><p>“<em>Maybe</em>, huh?” He pulls away, making as if he’s about to roll off of her. </p><p>“Fine—” </p><p>Rio arches a brow. </p><p>Fisting her hands into his shirt and the shoulder and pulling him back to her, she admits, “I like it a lot.” </p><p>She kisses him then, swallowing his moan when she hooks her leg around him to press him against her harder. </p><p>“Then I guess it’s decided,” he concedes when he pulls back and looks down, eyeing the dark purple mark he’s left on her. He runs his thumb over it, appreciative. “I won’t quit. We wouldn’t wanna deprive you, huh?”</p><p>“No,” she agrees, and then, for the first time, her hand slides down, down, down his chest until she’s fingering the waistband of his sweats, a question in her eye. </p><hr/><p>The next time she’s over two weeks later, Rio tries to convince her that she could pick him up sometimes, that he could tell Lola that he was going to hang at Mick’s or Dags’—neither of whom know anything about what’s going on, because Elizabeth’s sworn him to total secrecy, something else he bites back his complaints about—but she refuses.</p><p>“Where would we even go?” </p><p>“Anywhere,” he presses, kissing his way down from her mouth to her neck. “A park. An alleyway. Canada. I just wanna be with you.”</p><p>“Someone could see us,” she argues, pushing his hand away from the top button of her pajamas. “If Lola finds out I’ve been sneaking behind her back, I don’t know what she’ll do. She’s my <em> best </em> friend, Rio.”</p><p>“Your house,” Rio tries. It’s a stupid suggestion, he knows it is as soon as it leaves his mouth, but he couldn’t stop himself.</p><p>She just shakes her head sharply, and the conversation is over. </p><hr/><p>One day, after three missed Friday sleepovers, Rio spots Elizabeth rounding the corner into the girls’ bathroom during fifth period. He’s supposed to be picking up copies from the printer in the library for Mr. Stewart, but he can’t help himself. It’s been too long since he’s gotten to properly see her, talk to her. He follows her, pushing against the door and slipping in the stall before she manages to shut it.</p><p>She squeals in shock before she registers that it’s him, but he’s already locking the door and pinning her between him and the stall wall.</p><p>“Oh my god<em>, </em> ” she hisses quietly. “What are you <em> doing?</em>”</p><p>“Missed you,” he murmurs, linking his fingers with hers and stepping closer. </p><p>“We can’t—not <em> here,</em>” she protests weakly, but her resolve evaporates when he crowds her so that they’re practically on top of each other, staring at the other’s lips.</p><p>They’re standing in the least romantic place in existence, the air smelling strongly of disinfectant, but she’s wearing lip gloss, something shiny and pink, and he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to kiss her more. </p><p>“You miss me?”</p><p>“Didn’t you get my note?” she asks instead of answering, eyes drifting to his shoulder where she reaches up to pick a piece of lint off his lapel. </p><p>“Maybe sometimes I wanna hear you say it.”</p><p>“You’re a sap,” she teases, but she twists her neck, looking towards the stall door, like she’s listening to see if they’re alone. When she decides they’re safe, she turns back to him. “Okay. <em> Maybe </em>I missed you too.”</p><p>“Maybe, huh?”</p><p>“Sort of, kind of, perhaps a little bit,” she says, scrunching up her nose and squeezing his hand.</p><p>“Hmm,” he says, pretending to think about it. “I’ll take it.”</p><p>And then he’s leaning down to kiss her, pressing her against the stall, and he didn’t know how badly he wanted to kiss her standing up, how much he wanted to kiss her in the light of day, but there’s something strangely thrilling about this in a way that can’t be compared to their illicit midnight makeouts in his bed. </p><p>“Oh my god,” a girl says after thirty seconds, five minutes, a hundred years—Rio doesn’t know, but it shatters the moment they’re lost in when the voice echoes against the bathroom tiles. “Is someone <em> making out </em> in a bathroom stall?”</p><p>“Elizabeth?” a different voice asks.</p><p>And suddenly Elizabeth’s pressing on his chest and pushing him away from her, her eyes going wide in shock. Rio wipes her gloss off his mouth, eyebrows raising like, <em> Oh, shit. </em>Elizabeth scrunches her eyes closed, and Rio’s pretty sure she’s wishing she could teleport right about now. </p><p>The girl on the other side of the stall laughs. “Elizabeth, I can <em> see </em> your daisy Keds under the door. I <em> know </em> it’s you. Who’s in there with you?!”</p><p>Covering her face with her hands, Elizabeth doesn’t say anything.</p><p>The girls prod for a few more minutes, but when Elizabeth gives them nothing, they give up, leaving the bathroom in a burst of laughter.</p><p>“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Elizabeth moans.</p><p>“It’s gonna be okay,” Rio promises, reaching to push her hair out of her face. </p><p>“No, it won’t,” Elizabeth argues, batting his hand away.</p><p>Rio’s jaw locks, but it turns out that she’s the one that’s right.</p><hr/><p>The rumor spreads that Elizabeth was macking on some dude wearing the newest Air Jordans and Lola never even considers that it might be Rio. Still, he hides the shoes away under his bed with his notes and stops wearing them, at least until the whole thing blows over.</p><p>It doesn’t blow over, though.</p><p>The next time Elizabeth’s over after school, Rio can hear Lola playfully interrogating Elizabeth through the wall at random intervals, trying to get her to break. She jokes about waterboarding and darker methods, but Elizabeth must not budge because eventually the laughter dies out and he hears Lola says in a clipped tone, “I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me. I tell <em> you </em> everything.”</p><p>Lola doesn’t drop it, either, and Elizabeth doesn’t come over at all the next week. Rio tries to ask Lola one night what’s going on, but she just glares at him and scoffs. “Mind your own beeswax.”</p><p>He writes Elizabeth a note, but the one he gets back just says, <em> We need to be more careful.  </em></p><p><em> More careful? </em>he thinks, his anger sparking and licking up his spine. As if they weren’t so careful already that Lola didn’t even have Rio on the suspect list.</p><p>The feeling’s exacerbated the next weekend. </p><p>“There could be a million reasons,” he overhears his mother saying to Lola as she chops carrots, onions, and jalapeños on a lime green cutting board in the kitchen. </p><p>“But we’re <em>best </em>friends,” Lola protests, sitting with her legs crisscrossed on top of the opposite counter wearing one of Elizabeth’s hoodies, spinning one of the screw band lids of the pickling jars around on her finger. “I would tell <em> her.</em>”</p><p>“Well, mija, not everyone’s quite so open as you,” his mother says gently. She turns and, noticing Rio eavesdropping at the doorway, she uses her knife to point at him. “Look at your brother. Trying to get him to share his feelings is like trying to get you to clean your room: imposible.”</p><p>“Leave me out of it,” Rio says, moving into the kitchen to open the fridge and rifle around for something to drink. </p><p>Lola sighs. “I just don’t <em>get </em>it. Why wouldn’t she tell me? Does she think I would judge her? Because I kept my mouth shut when she dated <em>Dean</em> <em>Boland, </em>and I can’t imagine anyone worse than him.”</p><p>Would she still say that if she knew it was Rio that was kissing Elizabeth in that bathroom stall, he wonders? </p><p>“Honey, I don’t know why she wants to keep this to herself—but you can’t make her tell you. She’ll tell you when she’s ready.”</p><p>“I guess.” Lola pulls her long, brown ponytail over her shoulder and runs her fingers through her hair aimlessly. “It’s just—this isn’t the only thing she’s been weird about. Like, she quit piano for no reason at all, and then she was supposed to come to my dance showcase, but she totally bailed at the last minute for some ‘emergency’ she was super vague about. Plus, she keeps making excuses for why she can’t spend the night… And then when I’m like, <em> what’s going on with you, </em> she’s all <em> it’s nothing, it’s fine. </em> Like, what <em> is </em> that?”</p><p>Rio thinks about Elizabeth’s parents’ blowout fights, Annie’s emergencies, Elizabeth’s sacrifices. </p><p>Feeling suddenly protective of her, Rio taps at the top of his pop can and says, “Maybe it’s none of your business. Maybe you should just drop it.”</p><p>His mother twists her neck and peers at him, but in true Lola fashion, she completely overreacts:</p><p>“Maybe <em> this,</em>” Lola snaps, gesturing between herself and their mother, “is none of <em> your </em> business. Have you ever considered that?”</p><p>“Whatever,” Rio mutters, suddenly unable to stand the idea of being around Lola for another second. He walks out of the room, tipping his head back to take a drink of pop, but just before he rounds the corner, he hears his mother sigh. </p><p>“What <em> is </em>it with you two? You are always fighting like cats and dogs.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, that’s partly because he’s always acting like some lost puppy, sniffing after Elizabeth like he’s begging her to throw him a bone.”</p><p>Rio’s freezes on the spot, ears burning.</p><p>And then, of all reactions in the world, his mom <em> laughs. </em>It’s reluctant, quiet, a little guilty, sure—but it’s still a laugh. </p><p>“Oh, come on. It’s sort of cute,” his mom tries.</p><p>“<em>Cute</em>?” Lola asks incredulously. “It is <em> not </em> cute—it’s weird! He practically salivates at the sight of her! I wouldn’t be surprised if he dug through her trash to build a shrine in his closet.”</p><p>The image of Elizabeth’s notes tucked into the shoebox flashes before his eyes and he squeezes his hand into a fist, his nails digging into his palm. <em> That’s not— </em>he thinks wildly. Just because she wanted him to throw them away—it wasn’t the same. </p><p>“Tch, stop!” says his mom scolds. “He’s not <em> that </em> bad.”</p><p>“‘When’s Elizabeth coming over?’ ‘Isn’t that Elizabeth’s t-shirt?’ ‘Was that Elizabeth on the phone?’” Lola imitates, sounding like a lovesick idiot. </p><p>Acid pools in Rio’s stomach. </p><p>“It’s just a little crush.” </p><p>She must start cutting the onions, Rio realizes, his eyes stinging. </p><p>“Crush, obsession. Tomato, potato.”</p><p>“That’s not the saying,” his mother interjects.</p><p>Lola ignores her. “He’s always inserting himself into our plans, shoving books on her. He won’t leave her alone! For all we know, <em> he’s </em> the reason she’s stopped coming over so much,” Lola points out.</p><p>“<em>Or…</em>” his mom says playfully, like she’s hatching a wild conspiracy theory. “Or <em> he’s </em> the boy she was kissing in the school bathrooms. Yes! That’s it! I’ve cracked the case!”</p><p>“Please,” Lola says dismissively. “Can you even imagine?”</p><p>And suddenly the last thing Rio wants to be is <em> careful.  </em></p><hr/><p>She’s barely opened the front door and he’s already crossing across the carpet, blurting, “I want to take you to prom.”</p><p>Elizabeth blinks, hand still on the knob, her mouth falling open in quiet shock. </p><p>“Hear me out—” he starts when her eyebrows pinch and she makes a noise in the back of her throat like she’s about to start asking questions. He’s thought about it, and it was time. They had been together for months at this point, they’d weathered tough stuff, they were <em> good. </em>Sure, Lola would be a problem at first, but—</p><p>“Did you skip practice?” </p><p>It’s not the question Rio expects and he stops short. What did that matter? So he’d skipped practice and left her a note to meet him at 4 o’clock, when his parents were still at work and when Lola was at dance. Sure, Coach Reynolds would make him run extra laps at the next practice, would start him benched at the next game—but he didn’t know when she’d be over next. He was always waiting around for her and he hated it, hated feeling like he had no control over anything. </p><p>He knits his eyebrows. “Who cares?”</p><p>“I do!”</p><p>“I needed to talk to you.”</p><p>“That’s stupid,” she tells him. She closes the door, but she doesn’t take a step closer to him. “You can’t skip soccer just to talk to me.”</p><p>“Well, I can’t go up to you in the hallway, can I? And I can’t call you, just in case Lola picks up the other phone and hears your voice. Fuck, I can’t even write you a note unless it’s in goddamn code—”</p><p>“Rio, stop—” </p><p>She holds up a hand, flustered from his ambush, but Rio barrels forward, undeterred.</p><p>“I want to eat lunch with you,” he says, running his hand over his head in nervous agitation. “I want to kiss you goodbye outside of your classroom, and I want to see you in the bleachers at my game, and I want to take you to prom.” Elizabeth tugs on her necklace—<em>his </em> necklace—biting her lip. Rio's fingers twitch. “I want <em> everyone </em> to know that you’re my girlfriend.”</p><p>Elizabeth shakes her head. “You know we can’t—”</p><p>“Why not?” Rio interrupts, striding over to her. “So Lola gets mad at you. So what? She’s mad at you now. At least this way we get to be together.” He grabs her hands. “At least this way everyone will know—”</p><p>“Why is that important?” she asks shrilly. “Who cares what they know? You <em> know</em>, don’t you? You know how I feel about you.”</p><p>A beat. Then:</p><p>“Do I?” </p><p>Elizabeth’s face crumples. “How can you say that?”</p><p>“Because I ask you to prom, and you ask me if I skipped soccer practice.”</p><p>She turns away from him, hiding her face, and he hears a sniffle and sees her hand fly up to her eyes. Jolted back to the beginning, he remembers her standing tearstained in front of him. He’d told her Dean was an idiot, but apparently, now <em>he’s</em> the one making her cry. He rolls his shoulders, jaw locking. </p><p>“I won’t let you throw away things—important things—for me. I don’t want that. I don’t want you to do that. You shouldn’t quit something you love unless you <em> have </em> to—unless you have a <em> very </em> good reason—”</p><p>“You are a good reason,” he argues. “Nothing’s more important to me than you.” Couldn’t she see that?</p><p>“Don’t,” she says quietly, stepping back from him.</p><p>Rio furrows his brows, confused. “What?”</p><p>“Don’t put that on me. I can’t—I can’t be that for you.”</p><p>“My—” Rio swallows the lump in his throat. “—girlfriend?”</p><p>“Everybody <em> needs </em> something from me. All the time.” She swipes at her eyes, sucking in a breath. “I’m trying, okay? Isn’t that enough?”</p><p>He wants to say yes. </p><p>He wants so badly to be able to say yes.</p><p>“Nothing’s gonna change, is it?”</p><p>“Rio…”</p><p>“We’re never—” His voice comes out all cracked and weird, and he clears his throat, turning sharply away from her. “This is it, huh? This is all we’ll ever be?”</p><p>“Your sister—she’ll know I’ve been lying. She won’t—I can’t lose her, Rio. Especially right now.”</p><p>“And me?”</p><p>He forces himself to look at her. To watch she blinks and a single tear slides down her cheek, clinging to her chin. </p><p>“Don’t make me choose. Please don’t make me choose.” </p><p>He wants to reach out and wipe off the droplet, but his arm feels like lead. </p><p>“I think you just did.”</p><p>There’s a long horrible moment where he waits for her to protest, to change her mind, to fight for him.</p><p>“Lola will be home soon,” Rio announces. It’s as much the truth as it is a lie: Rio has no idea. Nothing feels real, let alone time. “You should go.”</p><hr/><p>“I was wondering where those had gotten off to,” his mom says the next morning as they’re all heading out the door for school, checking out his Air Jordans as he pulls his coat off the hook. “They were expensive.”</p><p>Rio shrugs. “Yeah, I just found ‘em again.” </p><p>Lola stands in front of him, oblivious, reapplying lip gloss with a small compact mirror, but his mom cocks her head curiously. </p><p>Rio idly wonders just how much detail Lola included about the mystery bathroom makeout boy, but he zips up his jacket and throws on his hoodie, blocking his face from view. </p><p>It’s not like it mattered anymore anyway, did it? </p><p>His mom doesn’t say anything more, and she drops them off in the turnaround in the front of the school, but Elizabeth’s not waiting at the flagpole like usual—for the sixth day in a row. </p><p>“Wonder which vague excuse I’ll get today?” Lola asks, unbuckling and throwing her seatbelt over her shoulder. </p><p>“Honey—” his mom starts, but Lola doesn’t listen. She’s out the door with a slam before their mom can even finish her sentence. She reaches up to adjust her rearview mirror, using it to lock eyes with Rio. “You know what’s going on with them?”</p><p>“Nope,” Rio says, popping the ‘p’ with a smack of his lips. His mom purses her lips, skeptical. </p><p>“Would you tell me if you did?” </p><p>“Nope,” Rio repeats. She sighs and he unclicks and slides out of the car without another word.</p><p>Elizabeth must see him and notice the shoes at some point during the day—not that Rio would realize, considering he spends the morning walking through the halls with his hood up and his head down—because she yanks him out of class in third period, flashing her Leadership badge and pretending Ms. Merino needed to ask him some questions about the soccer semifinals.</p><p>It’s a bad lie—a yearbook or newspaper badge would’ve made more sense, and besides that, qualifiers were still a week away—but Mr. Porter doesn’t question it. He doesn’t even get up from his desk, he just waves a hand to direct Rio to follow Elizabeth out of the classroom, and Rio wonders if she’s always known it was this easy to get him alone, or if she needed to see him so bad that she’d come up with it on the spot today. </p><p>A bubble of hope rises in him, but when she turns to face him, Rio immediately notices that her neck is bare. He blanches.</p><p>“You’re wearing the shoes,” she says, twisting around to make sure they’re alone in the hallway. She reaches a hand up to fiddle with her necklace, but drops it when she remembers. </p><p>Distantly, Rio can hear the dull drone of the documentary Mr. Porter’s playing, the scrape of metal desk legs against linoleum, and the buzz and the staticky murmur of the secretary’s voice over the PA system behind a closed classroom door. </p><p>“And?”</p><p>“And people might put it together. That we...” she trails off, studying the scuff marks on the tiled floor. </p><p>“There’s nothin’ to put together,” Rio says gruffly, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “You tell ‘em we’re not together and it’s not even a lie.”</p><p>Setting his jaw and grinding his teeth, he looks down the hallway, away from her. But the only thing at the end of the hallway are bright neon posters advertising prom tickets: <em> A Night Under the Stars!  </em></p><p>He’d had enough of those, he thinks. </p><p>(He’ll never have enough of those, he thinks.)</p><p>“Never really was though, huh?”</p><p>He forces himself to look back at her and a crease appears between her eyebrows and her eyes are glassy.</p><p>“I told you,” she says quietly. “I told you I couldn’t—that I would—I told you this would happen.”</p><p>Over before it started, Rio remembers. And how was it that it still felt like that, all these months later?</p><p>“You <em> made </em> it happen. <em> You </em> asked <em> me </em> to kiss <em> you. You </em> came into <em> my </em> room. I told you to go and <em> you </em> stayed. You said it was a good—” He stops himself. “You didn’t—” He can’t come up with the words. He waves a hand at her dismissively. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to worry about anyone thinking it was me—especially not my family.”</p><p>“Why do you say that?”</p><p>“‘Cause they think the thought of you liking me at all is a big fuckin’ joke. Laughable.”</p><p>Understanding dawns on Elizabeth’s face and she blinks, reaching out a hand like she wants to comfort him. But Rio steps back, out of her reach. He can’t—not again. </p><p>“I should go back to class.”</p><p>“That’s it?”</p><p>“That’s it,” he confirms. </p><hr/><p>He convinces himself he didn’t lose her, not really. It wasn’t really like he’d ever had her. Nothing had changed. What’s the difference? A few notes and a few hours of sleep on Friday nights? That was nothing.</p><p>(Not that he was sleeping well, but that was beside the point. Soccer season had finally ended and he didn’t have anywhere to channel all of his energy. That’s all it was.)</p><p>He’s up one night, <em> not </em> thinking about her, <em> not </em> remembering how small her hand felt in his, how blue her eyes got when she laughed, how far down her blush would go (once she’d finally started letting him unbutton her top all the way down).</p><p>He’s just lying there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, thinking about nothing.</p><p>The dryer squeaks from the hall, the fridge hums in the kitchen, and the crickets chirp outside. </p><p>And then he hears a <em> tap, tap, tap </em>on his cracked window.</p><p>“Rio?”</p><p>He’s dreaming, he thinks. He’s got to be dreaming, but he throws off his blanket and creeps the window, sliding it further open so that there’s just a screen between them. </p><p>She’s wearing her elephant pajamas, pale in the darkness, illuminated by the moon, and he hasn’t seen her this close in weeks. Has only caught glimpses of her in the hallway walking alone, and he’s always forced himself to look the other way.</p><p>And it wasn’t like—it wasn’t like he forgot.</p><p>It’s just—she’s so pretty his breath catches in his throat. </p><p>“What do you want?” he asks, stuffing the feeling down. </p><p>“Can I come in?”</p><p>“It’s the middle of the night.”</p><p>“When has that ever stopped us?”</p><p>Rio rocks his jaw, gaze drifting to the model plane sitting on the top shelf of his desk. He’d snapped the wing but he’d still kept it, still displayed it. </p><p>“Front door,” he says shortly.</p><p>He lets her in and they tiptoe back into his room, careful not to wake anyone. Elizabeth sits on his bed and Rio hesitates, uncertain, shifting his weight so that the floorboards whine underneath him.</p><p>“What do you want?” he asks again.</p><p>Elizabeth’s fidgeting, cracking her knuckles on her lap. “I needed to talk to you.”</p><p>“Now?”</p><p>Looking up at him sharply, she says, “Yes.”</p><p>“Is—is everything a’ight?”</p><p>He doesn’t even know what to think. Everything’s weird and tense and he wants to touch her—he wants to touch her so bad—but if he does he’s not sure he can stop, and he can’t do it again. He can’t have her by half-measures. </p><p>“I’m moving.”</p><p>Suddenly the earth shifts beneath his feet.</p><p>“My parents, they finally…” She swallows. “It was bad. My mom, Annie, and me… We’re moving to Ann Arbor.”</p><p>“Ann Arbor?” Rio repeats, hollow.</p><p>That was nearly an hour away.</p><p>“My grandma lives there.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>He’s trying to catch up, trying to put the pieces together, and it wasn’t that complicated, really, but all he can think is: he was so stupid. He was so fucking stupid. </p><p>He’d thought he didn’t have her—and now he would learn what that was like. For real. </p><p>“When?” he asks, just for something to say.</p><p>“Tomorrow.”</p><p>Rio’s dizzy, in a daze. He’d wasted all this time? He’d just… thrown it away?</p><p>“When did you find out?”</p><p>“Twenty minutes ago,” she says, and she looks at him with a weighted gaze, and he doesn’t have to wonder what she’s saying. <em> I came to you first.  </em></p><p>Wetting his lips, Rio steps forward, till his knees are knocking against hers. He tips her chin up, swipes his thumb along her cheek.</p><p>“Elizabeth, I—”</p><p>“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, shaking her head, wrapping her hand (so small) around his.</p><p>“What do you want?”</p><p>(Has he ever asked her that before? Or rather—had he ever been willing to really listen?)</p><p>“Could we just… lie together for a while?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, and he crawls into the bed, slips under the blankets, and then lifts it up, inviting her in.</p><p>She rests her head on his chest, and it should hurt, right, ‘cause he feels like his own sternum’s been shattered, but all Rio notices is the smell of peaches. </p><p>He rubs circles into her hip, and there are a million things to say, probably, but he doesn’t. They just breathe each other and after a while, he thinks she might be asleep when she punctures the silence:</p><p>“I think maybe I loved you.”</p><p>Something inside him cracks and splits—but something else, it blooms.</p><p>“Maybe, huh?” he tries teasing, but his voice is thick.</p><p>She doesn’t say anything, and that’s okay, he thinks. Maybe she doesn’t have to. </p><p>“I know I loved you,” he tells her, and Elizabeth sucks in a shaky breath, and then she’s reaching up, pulling his face down so that she can kiss him.</p><p>She’s kissed him a thousand times, and he should know what it feels like to kiss her, but this is different. Tender, yes. But hungry too. Needy. </p><p>Elizabeth tugs up his shirt.</p><p>“What…?” </p><p>“I want—”</p><p>“What?” he asks, breathless.</p><p>“I want you to be my first.”</p><p>He sucks his lip into his mouth, thinking.</p><p>Once. That’s all they’d have.</p><p>Or…</p><p>Or maybe he’d have this. A piece of her. This moment.</p><p>Forever.</p><p>He kisses her for a long time. And then they undress each other. Slowly. Savoring. He presses his lips to her skin—everywhere. Her earlobe. Her clavicle. Her ribcage. Her bellybutton. Lower. (And if he thought she’d only smelled like peaches—well.)</p><p>When she’s ready, when they’re both ready, he reaches underneath his bed and pulls out the box of his pipe and his papers—and condoms.</p><p>She doesn’t ask about the fact that he’d had them on-hand, just in case. Instead, as he’s tossing the wrapper onto the bedside table, she says, “You kept my notes.”</p><p>Poised above her, Rio licks his teeth, caught in his lie. </p><p>
  <em> Fuck.  </em>
</p><p>“I—”</p><p>“I’m glad,” she says softly. “Something to remember me by.”</p><p>“Darlin’,” he says, and he moves very gently, sinking into her, “there’s no forgetting you.”</p><hr/><p>They stay up all night.</p><p>“I don’t want to say goodbye,” she says, when the sky turns purple, voice raspy.</p><p>“So don’t.”</p><p>“I have to—”</p><p>“Maybe we could just say ‘good morning.’”</p><p>Elizabeth pauses, then nods, her hair tickling his chin.</p><p>“Good morning, Elizabeth,” he whispers.</p><p>“Good morning, Rio,” she responds.</p><p>And that’s the last thing that they say to each other.</p><hr/><p>The bed dips and Rio rolls over, peeking out from underneath his comforter.</p><p>“Are you sick?” his mom asks, pressing her hand to his forehead. Her hand is soft, warm.</p><p>“No, I’m not sick.”</p><p>“You’ve been sleeping a lot lately.”</p><p>Rio doesn’t say anything. </p><p>“Lola too.”</p><p>He nods.</p><p>“She misses her. Elizabeth.”</p><p>Rio shrugs, noncommittal. </p><p>“You’re allowed to miss her too. We all do.”</p><p>“It’s different,” Rio admits.</p><p>“I know, honey. I know you liked her.” She waits for him to respond, but how can he? It was the wrong word. It didn’t capture half of what he felt for her. Not even a quarter. Not even a sliver. </p><p>When Rio gives her nothing, she sighs, pushing off the bed to leave his room. “I’m making soup. I’ll bring you some.”</p><p>“Thanks,” he says.</p><p>She raises her eyebrows, surprised at his acquiescence. “Really?”</p><p>“Yeah."</p><p>His mom smiles. “Okay, then.”</p><p>“Hey, ma?”</p><p>She pauses, turning to look at him, hand on the door handle. “Yes?”</p><p>“She liked me too, you know.”</p><p>She pauses, watching him carefully. Then:</p><p>“I know,” she admits, smile turning a little sad. “How could she not?”</p><p>The door closes with a soft click and Rio rolls onto his back. His stomach grumbles.</p><p><em>Soup sounds good,</em> he thinks. He could eat. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I kept insisting I just wanted to have fun and not worry and just churn something out, but I changed my mind at the last minute and Meg graciously looked over this and made the story 10x better and more seamless in doing so. HUGE THANKS TO HER, SHE'S THE BEST FOREVER. </p><p>P.S. Loosely in my mind, I imagine that Beth meets Ruby at her new school in this 'verse and that's when she makes the switch from Elizabeth to Beth.<br/>P.P.S. I have no plans to write a sequel where they reunite, BUT if you've got an idea, I encourage YOU to write a fic about how they reunite ('cause they've got to reunite right?)</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title is from "Stunner" by Milky Chance. </p><p>She was a stunner/ Riding high and I got low/ Rank and others/ Couldn't see what she was worth</p></blockquote></div></div>
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